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Page 1: THE TEACHER AS "MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE OTHER" IN ASSISTING LITERACY LEARNING WITH SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS

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THE TEACHER AS "MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE OTHER" INASSISTING LITERACY LEARNING WITH SPECIAL NEEDSSTUDENTSTroy V. Mariage, Carol Sue Englert, M. Arthur Garmona Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USAb Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USAPublished online: 07 Jan 2011.

To cite this article: Troy V. Mariage, Carol Sue Englert, M. Arthur Garmon (2000) THE TEACHER AS "MORE KNOWLEDGEABLEOTHER" IN ASSISTING LITERACY LEARNING WITH SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS, Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming LearningDifficulties, 16:4, 299-336, DOI: 10.1080/10573560050129196

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Page 2: THE TEACHER AS "MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE OTHER" IN ASSISTING LITERACY LEARNING WITH SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS

Reading & Writing Quarterly, 16 : 299–336, 2000

Copyright 2000 Taylor & Francis(

1057-3569/00 $12.00 ].00

THE TEACHER AS ‘‘MORE KNOWLEDGEABLEOTHER’’ IN ASSISTING LITERACY LEARNING

WITH SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS

Troy V. Mariage

Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

Carol Sue Englert

Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

M. Arthur Garmon

Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA

This article examines four ways in which special education teachers assisted

studentsÄ development in literacy events. These include the teacherÄs role as a

more knowledgeable member of the classroom who (1) uses dialogue to scaþold

performance, (2) nurtures the dialogical relationship that underlies the dis-

course in classrooms, (3) uses procedural facilitation to make complex processes

accessible to students and gives them a language for talking about spoken and

written text, and (4) transfers increasing levels of control and responsibility to

students for regulating their own learning.

Teachers of students who have special learning and behavioral chal-

lenges often struggle with how they can engage these students in the

rich literacy instruction of their more able peers. While it is apparent

that these students need to be provided opportunities to develop their

letter recognition, phonemic awareness, and vocabulary skills, it is

less clear as to how teachers might assist the development of more

complex comprehension and composition processes.

Recent instructional research in literacy that has drawn on the

work of Vygotsky (1978) and other sociocultural theorists (Moll &

Greenberg, 1990; Wertsch, 1991) has shown the potential for trans-

forming the learning contexts in which special education students

receive literacy instruction to boost achievement (Englert, Mariage,

Address correspondence to Troy V. Mariage, Ph. D., 333 Erickson Hall,

Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Special Education, Michigan

State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1034. E-mail : mariaget=pilot.msu.edu

299

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300 T. V. Mariage et al.

FIGURE 1 Literacy Activities on the Early Literacy Project.

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Assisting Literacy Development 301

FIGURE 1 Continued.

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302 T. V. Mariage et al.

Garmon, Rozendal, Tarrant, & Urba, 1995; Ruiz, Garcia, & Figueroa,

1996). With an explicit focus on more knowledgeable members of the

culture who provide apprenticeships that assist students in acquiring

literacy practices, this research has importance in helping educators

understand how to teach our most challenged learners.

As a more knowledgeable member of the classroom, the teacher

has a vital role in employing a variety of tools and scaþolds to

support the development of literacy knowledge in the context of

dynamic reading and writing activities (Gallimore, Goldenberg, &

Weisner, 1992). The types of literacy events that the teacher chooses,

the ways in which the teacher utilizes various instructional scaþolds

(e.g., discourse, procedural facilitation), and the planned transfer of

control to students for carrying out the cognitive work of the activity

impact the type of literacy learning that is aþorded students in the

classroom (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988). Research is clearly needed to

better understand how teachers can assist studentsÄ development,

given the increasingly complex demands of todayÄs literacy curricula

and the charge for teachers to modify curricula so that all students

can acquire the knowledge and dispositions of successful readers and

writers.

One curricular approach that had signiücant impact on special

education studentsÄ reading and writing achievement was the Early

Literacy Project (Englert, Garmon, Mariage, Rozendal, Tarrant, &

Urba, 1995; Englert, Mariage, Garmon, & Tarrant, 1998). Underlying

the instructional model of the Early Literacy Project (ELP) were

several key principles drawn from a sociocultural perspective, includ-

ing a belief that literacy instruction should (1) be embedded in mean-

ingful, contextualized, and purposive activities, (2) be integrated

across the curriculum, (3) promote self-regulated learning, and (4)

foster a discourse community where literacy performance is mutually

shared, constructed, and made public (see Englert & Mariage, 1996;

Englert, Raphael, & Mariage, 1994). From these core beliefs about the

socially constructed nature of knowledge, a variety of literacy events

were chosen, including thematic inquiries, choral reading, undis-

turbed silent reading (Berglund & Johns, 1983; Levine, 1984), partner

reading (Dauite, 1986 ; Labbo & Teale, 1990 ; Morrice & Simmons,

1991; Topping, 1989), sharing chair (Graves & Hansen, 1983), morning

message (Routman, 1991), story response (Bos, 1991 ; Idol, 1987),

journal writing, and authorÄs center (Englert & Raphael, 1989). These

activities are depicted in Figure 1.

Our research showed that while the purported goals of these liter-

acy events signiücantly shaped the meaning that was constructed in

classrooms, it was the ways that individual teachers enacted the events

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Assisting Literacy Development 303

to assist both the individual studentÄs and the whole groupÄs cogni-

tive and social development that determined the eþectiveness of

various literacy practices. In this article, we draw upon the work of

ELP teachers to illuminate four forms of assisting student develop-

ment through guided apprenticeships in special education and inclu-

sion classrooms. These four forms of assisting development included

(1) the role of classroom talk in supporting learning (Mariage, 1995;

Palincsar, 1986) ; (2) the role of the teacher in nurturing the dialogical

relationship (Burbules, 1993 ; Tannen, 1989) ; (3) the use of procedural

facilitation (Bereiter & Bird, 1985) ; and (4) transferring control of the

meaning-making process to students.

THE ROLE OF TALK IN ASSISTING PERFORMANCE

Teachers often take for granted that talk is part of their teaching

repertoire ; it is a tool that simultaneously inýuences the social

context of the classroom and is a key mechanism in communicating

the content of messages. As a result, the ways in which teachers use

talk in classrooms is seldom part of their overt attention (Barnes,

1992 ; Wells, 1996). However, as Wells (1996) notes, unless teachers

understand the importance of classroom discourse and raise it to a

level of conscious attention and reýection, they are likely to miss key

opportunities to lead studentsÄ cognitive and social development.

To examine the ways that teachers used talk in their classrooms,

our team explored the nature of the literacy activities in special edu-

cation classrooms and how they promoted meaningful dialogue and

learning. Prior to the ELP intervention, students in these classrooms

were seldom asked to talk for extended periods of time, participated

narrowly in talk by largely responding to teachersÄ questions with

short, unelaborated answers, and were seldom constructors of new

text. As a result, we began to transform the classroom contexts by

ensuring that all students were active constructors of written and

spoken texts and played a prominent role in meaning creation. This

shift in emphasis from special needs students being consumers of cur-

riculum to producers of meaning forced teachers and researchers to

reexamine the role that talk played in classrooms. We now explore

several examples of how talk was used to scaþold performance to lead

to more complex understandings of the content under consideration.

Using Talk to Lead Student Thinking

On the project, teachers became increasingly adept at responding to

the unique needs of students by providing only sufficient support to

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304 T. V. Mariage et al.

allow the student to participate successfully in the event. Through

the deft use of a number of instructional ÃÃmovesÄÄ (Mariage, 1995;

Roehler & Duþy, 1991), including modeling, questioning (Bos &

Anders, 1990), uptaking (Collins, 1982), thinking-aloud (Lenz, 1989),

feeding back, and others, teachers were able to work at the edges of

studentsÄ understanding and involve them maximally in the literacy

activity. Depending upon the content in which teachers and students

were engaged, teachers adjusted their support on a moment-to-

moment basis. The following three examples, taken from the event of

Morning Message, illustrate the adjustable nature of teacher scaf-

folding.

In the ürst example, a 3rd–6th grade urban class of educable men-

tally impaired students was completing a morning message for the

ürst time. Morning message involved a group-writing activity in

which the teacher and students asked questions of the author to elicit

ideas about an experience or event, then transformed those ideas into

a written text that might be understood by a more remote audience

(e.g., for a newspaper story). The teacher acted as a scribe and facili-

tator for the group construction process by recording text on a large

piece of chart paper placed in front of the room. In the following

transcript, the teacher makes every attempt to allow the author,

Sharnika, and the other students to take an active part in the

meaning construction process, but the teacher still assumes a central

role in leading the dialogue and scaþolding student performance. The

teacherÄs role is further complicated by the fact that this is the ürst

morning message activity, and Sharnika has limited oral language

skills, restricting her willingness and ability to contribute to the

classroom discourse.

001 Teacher : Sharnika, did you do anything exciting this weekend you

would like to write about?

002 Sharnika : (smiles and nods, ÃyesÄ)003 Teacher : What did you do this weekend?

004 Sharnika : (smiles, looks unsure)

005 Teacher : (waits) Did you watch something special on T.V.?

006 Sharnika : (nods head ÃyesÄ)007 Teacher : What did you watch? Nickelodeon, Warner Brothers,

Simpsons?

008 Sharnika : (nods head ÃyesÄ) Nickelodeon.

009 Teacher : Okay, do you want to write about watching Nickelodeon

this weekend?

010 Sharnika : (nods head ÃyesÄ)011 Teacher : How can we put that in a sentence? (Waits) Could you call

on a friend to help you?

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Assisting Literacy Development 305

012 Sharnika : (points to Taneisha) Taneisha?

013 Taneisha : ÃÃThis weekend Sharnika watched Nickelodeon on T.V.ÄÄ014 Teacher : Sharnika, do you want me to write down that idea?

015 Sharnika : (nods) Yes.

016 Teacher : (writes on large chart paper) ÃÃThis weekend Sharnika

watched Nickelodeon on T.V.ÄÄ

In this example, the teacher attempted to create ample space for

Sharnika to enter the discourse, and only added support after giving

her time to respond. With the ürst question, ÃÃDid you do something

special this weekend,ÄÄ the teacher oþered Sharnika a wide range of

response potential. When Sharnika responded with uncertainty, the

teacher then added support by posing a question that shifted Shar-

nikaÄs attention to T.V., a subject that he felt conüdent that Sharnika

might have engaged in. When this question still did not aþord Shar-

nikaÄs entry into the discourse, the teacher added another layer of

information by actually oþering the names of several shows (e.g.,

Nickelodeon, Warner Brothers, Simpsons). Sharnika was then able to

participate at this level and responded, ÃÃNickelodeon.ÄÄ Next, when

asked to transform this idea into a sentence, Sharnika again

appeared uncertain, and the teacher suggested Sharnika call upon a

friend (Taneisha), who then oþered a sample text for the groupÄs con-

sideration.

While at ürst glance, this stretch of talk appears somewhat dis-

couraging because of SharnikaÄs limited participation, it illustrates

the nature of adjusting the level of support on a moment-to-moment

basis to further studentsÄ participation in the literacy activity while

allowing them to retain ownership of the textÄs construction.

Although it would have been easier for the teacher to call on other

students, he recognized it was essential that special needs students be

aþorded opportunities to implement literacy practices. Apprentice-

ships in literacy practices demand that all students participate, at

whatever level they can perform. For Sharnika, this meant her par-

ticipation in selecting a writing topic. Over time, as students partici-

pated in literacy events that engaged them in discourse (which

provided them with language models and feedback on a regular basis ;

e.g., Taneisha modeling for Sharnika how an idea could be trans-

formed into an oral text), students could begin to internalize increas-

ingly more complex ways of using literacy practices and talk.

Simultaneously, the teacherÄs role in the discourse was expected to

shift as individual students and the group took on a greater role and

ownership of the cognitive work.

The shifting role of the teacher is illustrated in the following tran-

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306 T. V. Mariage et al.

script of a 3rd–4th grade resource classroom of students who had par-

ticipated in Morning Message for two years. These students had

internalized many of the editing and revising conventions necessary

to create a well-formed written text. Consequently, the cognitive

support provided by the teacher had decreased and her role shifted to

that of being a facilitator for the studentsÄ talk.

In the following sequence, the teacher has asked the class ÃÃWhat

do I need [to do?]ÄÄ before recording ByronÄs message about going

üshing with his father. In this transcript, the brackets represent over-

lapping talk between two or more speakers.

060 Teacher : What do I need? Jerrod, what do I need (very rapid pace)?

061 Jerrod : Indent.

062 Teacher : I need to indent. What else do I need?

063 Angie : Capitals.

064 Teacher : Capitals. What else do I need, Tracey?

065 Tracey : Indent.

066 Teacher : I am going to indent and capitalize, and Juan.

067 M068 Jerrod : Topic sentence.

069 Juan : Topic sentence.

070 Danny : Yeah (shakes hand)

071 Teacher : And topic sentence. Byron, thatÄs your job.

072 Byron : ÃÃToday Byron will go üshing.ÄÄ073 M074 Danny : Pause (comma)

075 Nathan : Pause.

076 Jerrod : Tell them where you go ürst. Tell them where you go ürst.

077 Ss : ÃÃGo üshing.ÄÄ

This episode, like that in the previous transcript, represents the

beginning of the construction of a morning message. However, with

this more experienced group of special education students, the

teacher only needed to prompt the students to recall what a writer

needed to think about before beginning a paper, thereby creating

space for them to initiate their use of the literacy practices. Jerrod

and Angie quickly reminded the teacher that she needed to indent

and capitalize the ürst letter of the sentence. The teacher continued

to push their involvement in ever-widening ways by repeating the

statement, ÃÃWhat else do I need,ÄÄ after each suggested response.

Jerrod interrupted the teacher in line 068 and says, ÃÃTopic sentence.ÄÄJuan, whom the teacher asked to respond in line 066, also echoed,

ÃÃTopic sentenceÄÄ (line 069). Danny then conürmed their response by

saying ÃÃyeahÄÄ and pumping his hand in the air. In this classroom, the

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Assisting Literacy Development 307

call for a topic sentence was a tactical move that was handed back to

the author of the message for its enactment. In line 071, the teacher

turned to the author, Byron, to construct the topic sentence by

stating ÃÃAnd topic sentence. Byron, thatÄs your job.ÄÄ Without hesita-

tion, Byron stated his topic sentence in line 072, ÃÃToday, Byron will

go üshing.ÄÄIn contrast to the ürst example, the teacher in this transcript is

serving more as a facilitator in the conversation. Rather than having

to perform the bulk of the cognitive work through modeling, ques-

tioning, and thinking aloud, the teacher now transfers control of the

writing practices to students so that they can be apprenticed in the

implementation of the writing conventions they have begun to inter-

nalize. The role of the teacher in the discourse has shifted as the

skills and needs of the students have changed. However, in both tran-

scripts, the teacher provides only the minimal support that students

require to enter the meaning-making process, stepping in to prompt

or to provide additional information when students are unable to gen-

erate meanings and stepping back when they can perform practices

without assistance.

The ünal transcript illustrates how a teacher used speciüc forms of

talk, or instructional moves, to assist students in their thinking. Two

forms of talk, including talk that functioned to explicitly transfer

control of the meaning-making and monitoring process to students

(e.g., uptaking) and that which gave students deeper insights into the

teacherÄs thinking as a more knowledgeable member of the com-

munity (e.g., thinking aloud), are illustrated. Depending upon the

changing needs of the group, especially the tension between allowing

students maximum opportunities to participate in building their own

understandings, on the one hand, and the need to directly teach

writing conventions, on the other hand, the teacher utilized forms of

talk that either called upon studentsÄ background knowledge or

instructed students in the writing conventions that were shared by

the larger culture of writers.

In this example, the class was struggling to construct a topic sen-

tence on which everyone could agree. The author, Angie, had chosen

to develop a story around her upcoming birthday. At issue was

whether it was necessary to include the month of AngieÄs birthday

(April) in the text since the top of each Morning Message contained

that dayÄs date. Another issue centered around which of two com-

peting topic sentences sounded better (the classÄ topic sentence or

AngieÄs sentence). For ease of interpretation, the teacherÄs talk is

underlined within the transcript and the speciüc type of teaching

move is placed in parentheses.

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308 T. V. Mariage et al.

135 Nathan : No, the 24th, the 24th.

136 Teacher: So I take oþ, but we have ÃÃSaturdayÄÄ up there Nathan. So I

take oþ the

137 period (uptaking on NathanÄs suggestion).

138 Angie : No.

139 Mark : Yeah. And then put ÃÃthe 24th,ÄÄ and then put a period.

140 Danny : (rereads by himself) ÃÃSaturday the . . .ÄÄ141 Teacher: ÃÃthe 24th.ÄÄ And then I put a period (uptake of MarkÄsidea).

142 Angie : Hold on.

143 Teacher: ÃÃAngieÄs birthday is on Saturday the 24th.ÄÄ (rereading the

text)

144 Hannah : Yeah.

145 Ss : That sounds better.

146 Mark : Sounds good, yeah.

147 Angie : (stands at board) I thought what we could do is ÃÃAngieÄs148 birthday is on April 24th on Saturday.ÄÄ149 Teacher : ÃÃAngieÄs birthday is on April 24th on Saturday.ÄÄ (uptake

of AngieÄs idea)

150 Mark : That doesnÄt sound right.

151 Teacher : That doesnÄt sound right. (uptake of MarkÄs idea)

152 S : WeÄre using too many ÃÃAngieÄsÄÄ.153 Teacher : So, but what youÄre saying is that you really kind of wanted

154 ÃÃApril 24thÄÄ in there somehow? (Uptake to check understanding of

AngieÄs idea)

155 Angie : (goes to Message) Yeah, I wanted it in between, like here,

156 Ãcause that theyÄll know itÄs Saturday.

157 Teacher : Ok, listen, IÄll do it both ways. Listen carefully. ÃÃAngieÄs158 birthday is on Saturday the 24th.ÄÄ ThatÄs the ürst one. ÃÃAngieÄsbirthday is on April 24th

159 on Saturday.ÄÄ (modeling of two competing examples)

160 Danny : No, it doesnÄt sound right.

161 M162 Janitra : The ürst way.

163 Teacher : The ürst way sounds right? (uptake of JanitraÄssuggestion)

164 Ss : Yeah.

165 Teacher : You understand that? (checking for understanding by

asking a question)

166 Teacher : Did you hear how it was kind of choppy when I did it the

167 other way. And this way its kind of really smooth, it ýowed smooth-

ly? (thinking aloud)

168 But I see what youÄre saying, too. Mark?

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Assisting Literacy Development 309

In this episode, the teacher does very little direct instruction in

speciüc writing conventions, but instead acknowledges studentsÄthinking by uptaking on their ideas, usually by repeating all or part

of the studentÄs idea. Seven out of the ten teacher utterances involved

repeating or rereading what students had suggested. However, by

simply repeating studentsÄ ideas, she positions them to reýect on lan-

guage and participate in problem solving within the text construction

process. The students literally step into authoritative roles as they

begin to direct the text composition process, monitor the text, and

challenge othersÄ assumptions. They blurt out, ÃÃNo . . .ÄÄ ÃÃYes . . .ÄÄÃÃHold onÄÄ ÃÃThat sounds betterÄÄ and ÃÃThat doesnÄt sound right.ÄÄThese statements suggest that students are thinking and assuming

leadership roles from which they command or govern the writing

process. In this way, as the teacher vacated a direct teaching role

within the discourse, she opened up new possibilities for her students

as she apprenticed them in the literate practices associated with self-

monitoring and self-regulating the writing process.

Toward the end of the segment (when the debate about the topic

sentence deepens), we see how the teacherÄs uptake on ideas is partic-

ularly eþective because the value neutral stance of this move allows

the teacher to oþer both MarkÄs and AngieÄs topic sentences as viable

alternatives for the group to consider. The resulting pattern is a vol-

leying of Mark and AngieÄs propositions back and forth for the con-

sideration of the group. In line 139, Mark puts forth the idea that the

topic sentence should end with ÃÃ. . . the 24th,ÄÄ creating the sentence,

ÃÃAngieÄs birthday is on Saturday the 24th.ÄÄ The teacher takes up this

idea in line 141 by directly repeating MarkÄs idea back to the group.

The teacherÄs uptake prompts Angie to immediately question this

topic sentence in line 142 (ÃÃHold onÄÄ) and then actually stand up

from the authorÄs chair and suggest an alternative topic sentence in

lines 147–148 (ÃÃI thought what we could do is ÃAngieÄs birthday is on

April 24th on Saturday.ÄÄÄ). The teacher then takes up AngieÄs new

topic sentence and repeats it directly for the groupÄs consideration.

This new oþering again evokes a response from the group, as Mark

says, ÃÃThat doesnÄt sound right,ÄÄ which is immediately revoiced and

repeated by the teacher in line 151.

The teacherÄs revoicing of Mark and AngieÄs competing ideas

allows the group to ponder which topic sentence is more eþective.

However, in order to make the comparison of the two competing ideas

clearer, the teacher positions the two possibilities by setting up a

side-by-side comparison of the ideas. In lines 157–159, the teacher

takes more direct control of the talk (ÃÃListen carefullyÄÄ) and models

for the students how a more knowledgeable writer might compare two

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310 T. V. Mariage et al.

competing ideas, by ürst reading and listening to one topic sentence

(ÃÃÃAngieÄs birthday is on Saturday the 24th.Ä ThatÄs the ürst oneÄÄ)and then reading the other (ÃÃAngieÄs birthday is on April 24th on

Saturday.ÄÄ). The result of the teacherÄs direct modeling has a power-

ful eþect on the group, as Danny immediately responds that the

second topic sentence ÃÃ. . . doesnÄt sound rightÄÄ and Janitra simulta-

neously responds, ÃÃThe ürst one.ÄÄ The teacher then takes up

JanitraÄs suggestion that MarkÄs topic sentence sounds better by

repeating JanitraÄs words in the form of a question (ÃÃThe ürst way

sounds right?ÄÄ). A number of students then agree that in the side-by-

side comparison, the ürst topic sentence is clearer.

The teacher next checks the understanding of the entire group by

posing another open ended question (ÃÃYou understand that?ÄÄ) in line

165. This question precedes a think aloud in lines 166–167 that allows

the group to see how a writer might have been weighing or thinking

through the comparison of the two competing topic sentences : ÃÃDid

you hear how it was kind of choppy when I did it the other way. And

this way its kind of really smooth, it ýowed smoothly?ÄÄThough this example illustrates only two types of moves used by

the teacher in morning message, it highlights the teacher as a dis-

course participant whose instructional decisions are of profound

importance in the formation of apprenticeships that govern the way

that meaning gets constructed within the group. In this transcript,

the teacher recognizes that when there are competing ideas on the

speaking ýoor, there is a risk that one speakerÄs idea may come under

criticism by the majority of the group and not be considered as a

viable alternative. At the same time, if the teacher dominates the

group discourse with her own opinions, the discourse becomes rather

stilted as students begin to display knowledge to the teacher and not

take the personal risks involved in more meaningful encounters

(Bloome, 1986).

The teacher seems to strike a balance by strategically revoicing a

studentÄs idea and broadcasting it back to the group. This form of

uptake functions to communicate to the speaker that their idea has

been heard and is valued, but it also prompts the group to take

responsibility for directing or continuing the meaning construction

process. As a result of these uptakes, the writing goal, i.e., the need to

choose between two competing topic sentences, has been positioned

in such a way that students can make informed decisions about which

sentence ÃÃsounds rightÄÄ while maintaining the personal integrity of

the two students oþering the sentences (i.e., Angie and Mark). This

attention to thinking about how one aligns or realigns both the

content under consideration and the social relationships of group

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members will be discussed further in the explication of the teacherÄsinvolvement moves in the following section.

CONSTRUCTING THE DIALOGICAL RELATIONSHIPWITH STUDENTS

The underlying principles of the ELP, with emphases on the socially

constructed nature of learning, demanded that diþerent relationships

be established with students. As OÄConnor (1996) notes, when tea-

chers emphasize the childÄs role as a co-constructor of meaning with

the teacher and peers, the demands of orchestrating the discourse are

increased. When teachers transfer increasing control of the meaning-

making process to students and emphasize their active role in the

discourse, teachers have to confront their own long-standing beliefs

about roles and how learning occurs, including beliefs about

authority, power, and control. For special education teachers, a

group whose orientation emphasizes meeting each childÄs individual-

ized needs, this means growing more comfortable with a wider variety

of grouping arrangements (e.g., whole group, small group, partners),

increased noise level, and serving in a variety of diþerent roles (e.g.,

audience member, facilitator, coordinator) to meet their unique dis-

course demands.

One key feature of the most eþective ELP teachers was their

ability to form what Burbules (1993) called the ÃÃdialogical relation-

ship.ÄÄ These teachers forged new relationships with students that

were based upon the key communicative virtues of trust, respect, and

mutuality. As a result, teachers were not only responsible for helping

to build understanding of the process of meaning construction and

content, but also for establishing and nurturing the social relation-

ship of group members (see Burbules, 1993 ; OÄConnor & Michaels,

1993).

The teacherÄs role as a more knowledgeable member who served as

a facilitator in the construction of meaning was nowhere greater

than in Morning Message, with its focus on the construction of a

written text that the whole class could agree upon. The occasionally

volatile and heated dialogues that occurred as students problem-

solved around aspects of the writing process demanded that the

teacher be highly sensitive to the social needs of group members. In

order to accomplish this high level of involvement while building the

dialogical relationship of class members, teachers utilized a number

of conversational involvement moves to orient and position the whole

class or individual students to maintain a high level of participation

(Tannen, 1989).

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UR

E2

Deü

nit

ion

san

dexam

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sof

teach

er

involv

em

en

tm

oves

inM

orn

ing

Mess

age.

312

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UR

E2

Con

tin

ued.

313

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314 T. V. Mariage et al.

In Morning Message, the teacher used eight involvement moves,

including (1) repetition or uptake (Tannen, 1989), (2) revoicing or

reformulating an idea for the groupÄs consideration (OÄConnor &

Michaels, 1993), (3) rereading the text to orient the class, (4) support-

ing statements, (5) directly calling on an individual student, (6)

holding the speaking ýoor for a student, (7) using humor, and (8)

giving permission for students to continue talking (see Figure 2 for

deünitions and examples of the involvement moves). Involvement

moves appeared to have at least three functions, including involving

students as individual speakers (e.g., repeating, directly calling),

involving the entire group of speakers (e.g., revoicing; rereading),

and as a repair strategy (e.g., supporting) for resolving disagreements

among group members.

In the following Morning Message transcript, the teacher uses

several discourse moves to accomplish the three levels of conversa-

tional involvement (e.g., individual speaker, whole group, and repair).

This segment is a continuation of the previous message, where the

students are disagreeing about whether they need to put the month of

AngieÄs birthday in the text. After a number of suggestions, the

teacher turns to Angie and asks her to choose one of the possibilities

350 Teacher : Okay, ÃÃAngie is having a birthday party on the 24th.ÄÄ[re-reading]351 Teacher : It DOES sound right. All of them sound right

352 [supporting]. Hannah said, do you remember [direct call on

Hannah/ýoor holding]?

353 Hannah : Yeah. ÃÃAngieÄs birthday is on Saturday the 24th.ÄÄ Wait,

354 ÃÃAngie is going to have a birthday party on the 24th. She is going

to invite friends over.ÄÄ355 Teacher : (Looks at author) : ÃÃI should have written all these down.ÄÄ356 Danny : It sounds choppy.

357 Teacher : It sounds choppy [uptake]? Angie, I am going to let you

358 decide, what do you want it to say [direct call, supporting]?

359 Teacher : All of them sounded right [supporting]. I could do one,

two, three, four, üve,

360 six . . . fourteen, I could do fourteen diþerent

361 ways. Because all of us have our opinions. But this is AngieÄs, so

Angie, what do you want to say [direct call]?

362 Angie : ÃÃAngieÄs birthday is on Saturday and she is having a birth-

363 day party on the 24th.ÄÄ364 Danny : It sounds choppy.

365 Teacher : Ok, ÃÃAngieÄs birthday is on Saturday and she is having a

birthday party on

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366 the 24th [re-reading].ÄÄ And Hannah, Danny, one of you two said

ÃÃtoo many

367 birthdays [direct call],ÄÄ and Angie, you said to get rid of what

[ýoor holding]?

368 Angie : Okay, get rid of this one (points to second ÃÃbirthdayÄÄ).

In this short segment of transcript, the teacher orchestrates both

the content under consideration (e.g., the clarity of the topic

sentence) and the relationship between the participants. DannyÄs per-

sistence that AngieÄs topic sentence is ÃÃchoppyÄÄ and HannahÄs hesita-

tion about AngieÄs topic sentence in lines 353 and 354 positions the

teacher to use several discourse moves that maintain the involvement

of individual students and the group as a whole. After re-reading

AngieÄs topic sentence in the ürst two lines, the teacher immediately

supports students, including the author of the message, Angie, saying

that the topic sentence ÃÃDOESÄÄ sound right. At the same time, the

teacher honors the thinking of students who have diþerent ideas and

directly calls on Hannah, giving her the speaking ýoor to express her

ideas. Hannah takes advantage of this opportunity and repeats

AngieÄs topic sentence, adding an additional sentence about inviting

friends over. Danny continues to think the sentence is choppy, and

the teacher repeats DannyÄs comment, ÃÃit sounds choppy,ÄÄ giving

DannyÄs idea back to the group in a non-judgmental fashion. The

message then continues with several additional exchanges and

involvement moves.

In this brief glimpse at discourse during Morning Message, it

seems apparent that when teachers seek to create rich problem-

solving dialogues that underlie current reform eþorts, they will need

to be sensitive to ensure that studentsÄ voices are valued, protected,

and made public (Lampert, Rittenhouse, & Crumbaugh, 1996). Just as

teachers are constantly assessing the needs of their studentsÄ under-

standing of content and adjusting instructional scaþolds accordingly,

they need to give similar eþort to nurturing the dialogical relation-

ship between speakers. Ultimately, if we are to understand the poten-

tial for changing the ways students are asked to construct meaning in

the classroom and how they learn, teachers will need to foster the

communicative virtues of trust, mutuality, and respect that underlie

all forms of discourse (Burbules, 1993).

USING PROCEDURAL FACILITATION TO ASSISTDEVELOPMENT

A third resource that teachers used to assist development were a

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316 T. V. Mariage et al.

variety of procedural facilitation tools (Bereiter & Bird, 1985). Pro-

cedural facilitation, tools that help support and mediate the studentsÄimplementation of a procedure or process, accomplished at least two

goals on the Early Literacy Project, including (1) giving students a

language to talk about text and to converse with one another, and (2)

making explicit and visible the comprehension and composition pro-

cesses through the use of think-sheets and text structure maps.

Several tools that facilitated particular procedures and processes are

discussed below.

Entering the Discourse: Giving Students a Language toTalk About Text and Converse

When ELP teachers worked with nonconventional readers and

writers—students who were still unable to read and write ýuently—it

was necessary to provide a number of supports that allowed them to

participate in the entire process of producing and sharing texts.

Rather than focus exclusively on speciüc skill development (e.g.,

letter identiücation, sounds, forming letters), experienced teachers

found ways to ensure that every child participated in complex com-

position, comprehension, and oral discourse processes.

For example, in Sharing Chair, a literacy event that required audi-

ence members to ask authors ÃÃcomments or questions,ÄÄ it was found

that many students were unable to ask questions, and relied on sim-

plistic statements that were repeated over and over (e.g., ÃÃI like your

storyÄÄ). Since many special needs students lacked experience in using

more complex language forms (e.g., using interrogatives to monitor,

gather, or construct meaning; asking higher order questions), tea-

chers needed to scaþold the discourse by demonstrating, thinking-

aloud, and modeling the literacy practices associated with inquiry

and question-asking.

To encourage studentsÄ use of the literacy practices so that they

could begin asking their own questions, teachers used ÃÃhelper wordsÄÄthat were posted on a mobile in the classroom. The helper words,

including Äwho, what, when, where, why, and howÄ (see Figure 3) were

used to provide students with access to a language and to provide

them tools with which to participate in the discourse of the literacy

community (Gee, 1992). As shown in Figure 3, teachers gave meaning

to these tools by providing guided apprenticeships in which they

thought out loud about their function (e.g., ÃÃNow remember, our

authors have spent a lot of time writing their stories, we need to

think of questions to ask them to help them remember what they

didÄÄ), modeled the strategy by asking authors questions about their

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Assisting Literacy Development 317

FIGURE 3 Helper words used to support students questioning, categorizing,

and summarizing.

stories, questioned students to prompt their use of the helper words,

and transferred control of the helper words to the students.

Initially, it was necessary to make explicit the helper words and to

frequently refer students to them. Over time, however, students inter-

nalized the question-generation strategy as they used the tools to

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318 T. V. Mariage et al.

mediate their own performance in multiple contexts and for varied

purposes. In the following annotated example of a Sharing Chair

lesson from the same third and fourth grade classroom who had been

in Early Literacy Project for several years, we see that students were

able to use questioning eþectively to get meaning from their peers.

In this transcript, Angie was participating in Sharing Chair by

reading a journal entry that she had written about the upcoming

birthday party described in the previous transcript. She called on

audience members for ÃÃcomments or questions,ÄÄ to which audience

members responded. Through their questions and comments, the audi-

ence positioned Angie to respond in particular ways. Audience

membersÄ questions are bolded.

224 Angie : ÃÃMy birthday is April 24th 1993 and I will turn 10 years old

225 on Saturday, and tomorrow I will bring squirrel bars to the party

and I am going

226 to invite Janitra, Amber, Laurie, Tracey and Hannah for a party at

my house.ÄÄ Any

227 comments or questions? Uh, Tracey?

228 Tracey : Um, are we going to have your address?

229 Angie : Huh?

230 Tracey : Are we going to have your address?

231 Angie : No, my mom, my mom told me, um, if, that you guys, to give

232 me your guys phone number or address and weÄll go over and pick

you guys up.

233 Tracey : Oh good.

234 Angie : (cont.) and stuþ like that, cause at our house, its a big

235 house, and um, like, we, um, thereÄs thereÄs 3 bedrooms downstairs

and 3 bedrooms

236 upstairs. Because its a big house. My uncle Johnny, my uncle

237 Johnny before he moved out, he made 3 bedrooms downstairs. You

know

238 how the basements are big, how some of the basements are big. He

took, it

239 used to be a living room, a dining room, and stuþ like that. And he

built it

240 into 3 rooms. Danny?

241 Danny : This is a funny question, but what in the world are

squirrel bars?

242 Angie : (laughs) Well, I donÄt know, all I know, I donÄt really know, I

243 think theyÄre called, I think they look like, well you know how, um,

regular

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244 candy bars look like, you know how they look like, like some of the

245 candy bars look like Rice Krispies, but um, but you make your own

bars.

246 Like you, um, put chocolate, chocolate in Äem, chocolate, chocolate

chips in Äem.

247 Ss : Oooh, bad.

248 Angie : Stuþ like that. Amber?

249 Amber : Um, I am not going to be able to come because weÄre going

250 up north, and I have to do some chores up there, up there because

my aunt lives

251 there and my uncle but, he canÄt move around very much so I have

to help

252 him do things. First I have to (feed horse?). Plus, I have to spend

time with (?).

253 Angie : Janitra?

254 Janitra : Why aren’t you going to invite her (points to

teacher)?

255 Angie : (smiles) Maybe she, my mom thought about just having kids

256 over, because, well, this is my ürst year, this is my second year of

having a slumber party.

257 And my mom thought of it and my grandmas thought of it, so I

258 decided to write it in my journal yesterday. Nigel?

259 Nigel : On my birthday I only get to invite 10 people.

260 Ss : Ten?

261 Angie : ThatÄs a LOT. Hannah?

In this section of talk, Angie is positioned as the informant by the

three questions and two comments from her audience. However, dif-

ferent questions and comments seem to elicit diþerent types of

responses in Angie. Angie is asked three questions : ÃÃAre we going to

have your address,ÄÄ ÃÃWhat in the world are squirrel bars,ÄÄ and ÃÃWhy

arenÄt you going to invite her.ÄÄ In the ürst two questions, Angie is

positioned to undertake particular forms of cognitive work, including

explaining, clarifying, and describing. For example, in order to

respond to her birthday party guestÄs question about where she lives,

Angie is positioned to explain to her prospective guests why they did

not need the address. AngieÄs explanation then goes beyond TraceyÄsoriginal question to include a description of her house and how her

uncle added an addition to the home, allowing many friends comfort-

ably to have a party.

Similar to TraceyÄs question, Danny also seeks some explanation

as to what ÃÃsquirrel barsÄÄ (Snicker Bars) are. DannyÄs question posi-

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320 T. V. Mariage et al.

tions Angie to describe the bars and clarify the confusion associated

with the term ÃÃsquirrel.ÄÄ Since these treats will be passed out to the

members of the class, there is an urgency for Angie to respond.

Having to describe and clarify was not an easy task for Angie. In her

brief response in lines 242 to 246, Angie hesitates seventeen times,

making it apparent how important peersÄ questions were in challeng-

ing and nudging forward her thinking and proücient use of conversa-

tional practices.

JanitraÄs questions function quite diþerently than the ürst two.

Janitra begins her question with the word ÃÃwhy,ÄÄ signalling to Angie

that she may be positioned to justify her writing. Janitra positions

Angie to justify why she invited each female member of the class

except the teacher. This question seems to have the eþect of strongly

urging Angie to respond. As in her explanation about squirrel bars

(Snicker Bars), Angie again seems to be challenged to justify her

exclusion of the teacher, trying to ünd the correct words to respond

(e.g., Maybe . . . because, well, this is . . .).

To the casual observer, the ability of students to ask questions

might seem deceptively easy. This accomplishment was achieved only

through the teachersÄ initial support of students through the provi-

sion of explicit helper words, thinking aloud about how and where to

use the words, modeling their use in meaningful contexts, and trans-

ferring control of the use of questioning to students. Gradually, stu-

dents were able to appropriate this practice to enter literacy

conversations about texts and ideas. Over time, students themselves

became more knowledgeable members whose own questions and com-

ments challenged and pushed the thinking of their peers.

A second use of the helper words in the classroom was to prompt

students to categorize information when writing and reading exposi-

tory texts. It is well documented that special needs students and low

achieving students have difficulty in categorizing information

(Raphael, Englert, & Kirschner, 1989) and summarizing main ideas

from what they have read (Bos, Anders, Filip, & Jaþe, 1989). To help

assist students who had difficulty generating categories of informa-

tion, ELP teachers routinely use text structure maps (e.g., explana-

tion, compare/contrast, topic clustering) to organize and sequence

information. Students soon learned that categories of expository

information usually began with one of the helper words.

For example, to complete a story about his family, a third grade

student, Jarrell, used the categories ÃÃPeople in my family [who],ÄÄÃÃWhere I live,ÄÄ ÃÃWhat my family teaches us,ÄÄ and ÃÃWhat we do

togetherÄÄ (see Figure 4). With the support of the helper words to

mediate his identiücation of categories of information, Jarrell gener-

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E4

Jarr

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Äsorg

an

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on

map.

321

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322 T. V. Mariage et al.

ated 25 details that he eventually included in his story. The helper

words from JarrellÄs map then served to help him generate a topic

sentence for each of his paragraphs of information (e.g., ÃÃSecond, I

am going to tell you about where I live,ÄÄ ÃÃThird, I am going to tell

you what my family teaches meÄÄ).As these examples illustrate, procedural facilitation tools helped

mediate literacy practices by bringing the endpoint of writing

organized text ÃÃforwardÄÄ to the beginning, helping students with

special needs coordinate the act of writing before the child could

accomplish this activity for himself (Newman, Griffin, & Cole, 1989).

Likewise, teachers helped students participate in the discourse by

making visible the language conventions necessary for a given liter-

acy activity. Teachers on the ELP routinely used mobiles (see helper

words in Figure 3), printed sentence stems (e.g., ÃÃI predict . . . ,ÄÄ ÃÃIthink one category is . . . ,ÄÄ ÃÃI think the main idea is . . .ÄÄ), peers, and

ýip charts to alert students to the unique language demands of the

activity and to provide access to that language. These artifacts

served as cognitive resources to augment and guide studentsÄ literacy

activities. When students had internalized these language practices

to direct their own independent problem solving, the teacher with-

drew these external scaþolds and transferred increasing levels of

responsibility to students for generalizing the use of these practices

across the curriculum.

Making Explicit Comprehension and CompositionProcesses

As already mentioned, many special needs students lacked the lan-

guage skills and opportunities to engage in the rich dialogues that

their peers routinely engaged in. Therefore, it was especially impor-

tant that these students be given access and multiple opportunities to

participate in the language and discourse of skilled readers and

writers, even though this discourse was initially beyond their initial

levels of performance. To accomplish this, teachers made explicit and

concrete the particular ways of speaking and ways of thinking associ-

ated with complex comprehension and composition processes, and

they oþ-loaded complex cognitive activities using a number of

instructional scaþolds, such as the text structure maps, sentence

stems, rubrics, and self-evaluation checklists.

However, the aþordances of artifacts and scaþolds are deeply cul-

tural ; that is, a person must be initiated into the cultural activities

that give meaning to these devices. Project teachers provided these

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Assisting Literacy Development 323

initiations through apprenticeships, where the students were intro-

duced to and participated in activities that called upon particular

ways of speaking and involved members in the use of cultural arti-

facts in situated contexts. To demonstrate how teachers provided

these supported apprenticeships in the reading and writing process,

we draw upon a co-taught üfth grade classroom where the general

education teacher and special education teacher taught together for

a period of the day. In this classroom, the special education teacher

was concerned about the background knowledge and lack of strategy

knowledge (e.g., prediction, organization, summarization, editing)

that many students, including the seven special needs students in the

class, would bring to the classÄ study of the novel, ÃÃJulie of the

WolvesÄÄ (George, 1972). To help activate and build a shared back-

ground knowledge, the special education teacher embarked on a

month-long thematic inquiry unit on wolves, where she explicitly

taught and provided apprenticeships in the comprehension and com-

position process to all students.

Throughout the unit, the teacher modeled each phase of the

writing and inquiry process, including planning oneÄs paper,

researching and organizing information, and introducing a rubric to

frame the expectations for drafting, editing, and revising (Englert,

Raphael, & Anderson, 1992). Each of the think-sheets used in the unit

are shown in Figure 5.

As can be seen in Figure 5, the teacher made explicit the entire

writing process to students by having a large banner with the letters

ÃÃPOWERÄÄ written vertically (see Englert, Raphael, & Anderson,

1992). Each letter was given a color that matched the color of the

think-sheet that students used (e.g., the ÃÃPlanÄÄ think-sheet was

colored red). The teacher and students reviewed the phases of the

writing process each day, and she had students think-aloud about

where their group was in their inquiry unit (i.e., Planing, Organizing,

Writing, Editing, or Revising). Sentence stems alerting students to

the key tasks for each phase of composing text prompted students to

become metacognitive of writing as a strategic process. For example,

in the ÃÃPlanningÄÄ phase, the teacher had students identify who their

audience was, why they were writing the paper, what they knew

about the topic, and sources where they could obtain information

about wolves. The class then generated twenty sources of informa-

tion, including the Internet and interviewing a member of the Depart-

ment of Natural Resources. Since many students do not access their

prior experience as a legitimate source of information, having the

class draw upon and synthesize information across multiple sources

expanded ÃÃwhat countsÄÄ as information for the students.

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E5

Wri

tin

gpro

cess

thin

k-s

heets

.

324

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Assisting Literacy Development 325

The teacher also introduced the students to a scoring rubric to

guide the quality of their writing (see Figure 6). The teacher intro-

duced the rubric and spent several lessons modeling examples and

non-examples of each of the standards, including an introductory

paragraph that included each of the categories about which authors

FIGURE 6 Scoring rubric.

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326 T. V. Mariage et al.

FIGURE 7 Writing self-evaluation tool.

would talk, a topic sentence for each paragraph, at least 2–3 support-

ing details, and a conclusion paragraph. This use of the rubric,

coupled with concrete examples and non-examples for each of the cri-

teria, gave each student an internal standard to judge the adequacy

of their own work.

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Assisting Literacy Development 327

A ünal tool the teacher used to make explicit the often invisible

processes and strategies that good writers and readers use was to

engage students in a self-evaluation of the entire inquiry experience

(see Figure 7). To accomplish this, the teacher had students reýect

upon each phase of their inquiry and ask themselves whether they

accomplished their goals. In this way, students were apprenticed into

a speciüc discourse about writing, a discourse that became increas-

ingly internalized and ÃÃownedÄÄ over time to guide independent

attempts at writing.

On the ELP, teachers used procedural facilitation to help support

students as they engaged in complex forms of reading, writing, speak-

ing, and participating. Procedural facilitation served many functions

in these classrooms, including acting as a temporary scaþold to give

students a language or vocabulary for interacting with text (e.g.,

helper words), making visible complex processes like comprehending

or composing, and structuring information in ways that helped stu-

dents to understand relationships (e.g., using think-sheets for plan-

ning or organizing ideas) between ideas.

TRANSFERRING CONTROL OF THE MEANINGMAKING PROCESS

A ünal role that the teacher can play in assisting the low achieving

and special needs student in the higher-order thinking of com-

prehending and composing text is to ensure that there is a gradual

ceding of responsibility to students for taking over the learning

process (Palincsar, 1986). In our experience in classrooms, teachers of

special needs students often provide too much of the cognitive work

for students and fail to ÃÃup the anteÄÄ as the student is able to take

over increasing levels of sophistication. Unless teachers transfer

control of the meaning-making process to students, these students

will continue to be dependent upon the support of others and fail to

internalize complex strategies and processes to regulate their own

learning.

However, as every teacher knows, when expectations are raised

and more is asked of students, they can meet with great resistance.

One possible solution to this challenge is to make sure that teachers

create activities that are purposeful to students, where students are

required to learn strategies to accomplish meaningful social goals,

rather than as ends in themselves. When ELP teachers began to

believe that every student was an author and reader, they increas-

ingly asked themselves to think of the tools that students needed to

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328 T. V. Mariage et al.

accomplish the goals of their work, rather than focus on whatever

limitations their students brought to the classroom. Teachers came to

understand how they could be responsive to studentsÄ individual

needs by ünding an entry point for learning and then transferring

increasing control for meaning-making to students.

What Can Teachers Transfer to Students?

When teachers have students gather and synthesize information from

multiple sources, teachers can transfer a number of learning features

to students, including (1) the modalities with which children are

expected to respond, (2) how the students are asked to participate in

the discourse, (3) the personal resources available to students as

knowledgeable others, and (4) the procedural facilitation used to

support learning (see Figure 8). Over the course of a lesson, unit, or

year, the teacher can make decisions to increase the complexity of

the inquiry by asking more of an individual or group of students in

any of the four areas identiüed. In this way, teachers can be

responsive to the unique needs of students and help to ensure that

they are nudging students towards more complex forms of learning.

FIGURE 8 Four areas for transferring control of the meaning-making

process.

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Assisting Literacy Development 329

To illustrate how teachers might transfer control of these features

of instruction, we draw upon one teacherÄs attempt at transferring

control of the writing process in each of the four areas outlined above

over one year. The teacher, Monica Barnes, teaches in a 1st–3rd

grade cross-categorical resource classroom for special needs students.

One second grade student, Nathan, is used to illustrate many of the

challenges facing our young writers.

Nathan was typical of many students in our early special educa-

tion classrooms. NathanÄs writing challenges included difficulty in

producing written text, a limited writing vocabulary to communicate

ideas, a perception of himself as a non-writer, an overemphasis on

surface features of writing like spelling, a lack of knowledge that

writing is a process requiring multiple steps, and a history of limited

writing instruction (see Figure 9).

In order to address the writing challenges that these students

brought to the classroom, teachers on the Early Literacy Project

developed their curricular focus around four broad areas, including

(1) assisting students in the production of written text, (2) helping

students perceive themselves as informants and authors, (3) making

instructional scaþolds and support visible to students, and (4)

immersing students in a culture of writers and the writing process.

Within each of these four curricular features, teachers were cogni-

zant of the need to constantly ÃÃup the anteÄÄ and transfer increasing

control of the modalities, access to more knowledgeable members,

procedural facilitation, and the demands of the discourse.

When working with nonconventional readers and writers—

students who are still struggling to decode and produce written

text—teachers often must allow students to utilize alternative modes

of responding to enter the literacy community. This includes using

alternative ways to produce written text, to read text, and to make

public the results of their work. Monica and other teachers on the

Early Literacy Project used a wide-range of techniques to allow stu-

dents to enter the world of writing, including drawing pictures,

copying text, writing the ürst letter of a word and drawing a line,

taking dictation, and using Post-It notes to spell unknown words.

While Nathan and other students in MonicaÄs class struggled to

produce written text independently, she still emphasized the impor-

tance of helping each student feel like an informant by making their

writing (or reading) a public and shared event. To accomplish this

goal, Monica had her students read their writing in Sharing Chair,

participate in Morning Message, read with partners, write with part-

ners, and write to pen pals in the district. Students like Nathan, who

had difficulty reading written text, were often times allowed to

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FIG

UR

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Mon

icaÄs

cu

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cu

san

dst

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gie

sfo

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isti

ng

wri

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gdevelo

pm

en

t.

330

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Assisting Literacy Development 331

dictate their stories and then memorize their text to read in the

Sharing Chair. Each student in the classroom was also given the

choice to call upon another student to help aid in their reading by

having that person stand behind them and whisper the correct pro-

nunciation in their ear. In this way, even nonconventional readers

and writers were assisted to become authors in the classroom.

Throughout the year, as students became more conventional

readers and writers, students relied less on others to help support the

reading of their texts but beneütted from the increasing complexity of

the comments and questions posed by their audience. Just as students

were apprenticed as authors who shared their thinking in a public

forum, so too were the audience members becoming more able to

respond to othersÄ texts through increasingly complex questions and

comments. As the student audience began to expect more of their

authors, the authors began creating richer and more complex texts

(Mariage, 1996).

A third way that Monica supported her studentsÄ writing develop-

ment was through the use of a variety of instructional scaþolds to

assist student writing. Key word charts (e.g., transition words),

helper words, non-phonetic sight words, word banks, writing process

chart (e.g., Plan, Organize, Write, Edit, and Revise), and charts

depicting speciüc editing strategies (e.g., CUPS—Capitalization, Use

correct words, Punctuation, and Spelling) were all displayed promi-

nently in the classroom. However, the mere presence of these sup-

ports is insufficient to support their use by novice writers. For

example, early in the year, Monica brought attention to the key word

chart in the room as she thought out loud about the need to help the

audience keep track of the diþerent categories of information as her

class developed whole class stories around expository topics (e.g.,

amphibians, reptiles, mammals). Monica demonstrated how the key

words ÃÃürst,ÄÄ ÃÃsecond,ÄÄ ÃÃthird,ÄÄ ÃÃnext,ÄÄ ÃÃthen,ÄÄ and ÃÃünallyÄÄ could

be used to sequence the paragraphs of their story on their whole class

organization map. Later in the year, as students began to use their

own individual maps, Monica had students write the key word

directly next to the category of information on their own organiz-

ation maps. Eventually, students were given a rubric that asked them

to utilize key words in their writing and to identify those key words

by using a colored-marker directly on the draft of their text.

A ünal area of focus in MonicaÄs classroom was to immerse her

students in a writing culture and the writing process. Monica provid-

ed many opportunities for students to engage in the entire writing

process as a whole class, to see text constructed in Morning Message,

to produce written text on a daily basis in journals and receive feed-

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332 T. V. Mariage et al.

back on their writing attempts in Sharing Chair, and to engage in

inquiry units around expository topics included in the science (e.g.,

animals) and social science curricula.

In MonicaÄs and other ELP classrooms, there was a signiücant

shift in emphasis away from viewing reading and writing as ends-in-

themselves toward a recognition that reading, writing, and speaking

were tools to accomplish social goals. In both ELP and non-ELP class-

rooms, there tended to be an explicit focus on the direct instruction

of reading skills, strategies, and processes. However, in ELP class-

rooms, teachers tended to be more aware of the need to embed and

introduce these skills, strategies, and processes in authentic tasks

when they were necessary to accomplish meaningful goals for real

audiences and purposes. Speciücally, ELP teachers introduced

reading (e.g., predicting, summarizing), writing (e.g., editing conven-

tions, process of writing), and speaking (e.g., questioning) skills, stra-

tegies, and processes as tools that allowed the individual or group to

better accomplish their goals of communicating with each other.

To accomplish this, teachers emphasized the importance of placing

students in the role of scientist, researcher, author, and mathemati-

cian. Rather than artiücially limit what students could accomplish,

ELP teachers grew increasingly aware of the importance of adjusting

the scaþolding necessary to accomplish the communicative goal

rather than limiting what students attempted before they started. For

example, before a trip to interview members of an internationally

known circus, MonicaÄs students were given ample time to generate

questions to ask the performers with the assistance of question words

(e.g., who, what, when, where, why, how), were provided with a clip-

board and interview ÃÃthink-sheetÄÄ for recording their questions and

answers, and were paired with a fourth- or üfth-grade partner from

the upper elementary special education classroom for help and

support. In this way, Monica took seriously the need for her students

to learn to be ÃÃreportersÄÄ and ÃÃresearchersÄÄ and taught the speciüc

skills (e.g., asking a question), strategies (e.g., using a think-sheet to

organize your questions and provide enough space to write the per-

formerÄs response), and processes (e.g., brainstorming questions,

delimiting questions, asking questions, taking dictation, synthesizing

information, and drafting reports) necessary to accurately report on

the classÄ trip to the circus.

Rather than introduce the stages of the writing and inquiry

process as separate entities to be taught, Monica and other ELP tea-

chers created meaningful contexts that required the use of the stra-

tegies and processes in these stages to accomplish the larger goals of

the lesson (e.g., to create a written report and share this with the

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Assisting Literacy Development 333

kindergarten class). Teachers not only thoughtfully transferred

control of increasingly difficult skills and content, but also of aspects

of the various stages of the inquiry process (e.g., brainstorming, gath-

ering information, organizing information, drafting, and making

public the products of oneÄs inquiry).

For example, early in the year, Monica modeled and thought-aloud

with her students the entire inquiry process. She served as scribe and

brainstormed, categorized, and drafted text with students on large

chart paper. Later, Monica paired her 1st–3rd graders with fourth-

and üfth-grade students from the adjoining special education class-

room. These older students then served as apprentices to the younger

students, taking over the roles that Monica had performed earlier in

the year. Later in the year, Monica began to give groups of her stu-

dents responsibility for ünding information independently about a

single category (e.g., ÃÃHow the dolphin eatsÄÄ). Near the end of the

year, Monica began to expect some students to complete their own

categorization maps and begin to draft text independently from their

maps.

As MonicaÄs examples illustrate, teachers need to be thoughtful of

the many challenges that face special needs students like Nathan and

have speciüc strategies for assisting their development in a number of

areas. These students often will need support in producing written

text, in perceiving themselves as informants, in having access to scaf-

folds to support their writing, and in becoming immersed in a writing

culture and the writing process. However, it is the teacherÄsthoughtful transfer of control of all aspects of the meaning making

process that is essential if students are to take on increasingly

complex levels of independence and responsibility for regulating the

writing process. The most eþective teachers on the ELP were those

that initially supported students through the types of techniques and

strategies outlined in Figure 8 but who quickly asked students to

assume more cognitive work across the year. These teachers eþec-

tively increased the complexity of the modalities they asked students

to respond with (e.g., oral and written), the more knowledgeable

members available to support students (e.g., whole class, teacher led

vs. small group), the procedural facilitation available to support

thinking (e.g., teacher modeling of key words vs. independent use of

key words in own writing), and the demands of the discourse (e.g.,

teacher think-aloud vs. student think-aloud).

CONCLUSION

When teachers bring to conscious reýection multiple ways to assist

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334 T. V. Mariage et al.

studentsÄ development, they enhance the opportunities that special

needs students have to learn more complex comprehension and com-

position processes. Students who are less likely to oþer their ideas or

who lack the complexity of other language users can be brought into

the fabric of more conventional literacy practices through the

teacherÄs thoughtful use of a variety of instructional features, includ-

ing discourse, building a classroom community that nurtures the dia-

logical relationship (Barnes, 1992), procedural facilitation, and the

gradual ceding of responsibility to students to take a greater role in

the meaning-making process.

On the Early Literacy Project, teachers came to choose a variety

of literacy events that had important implications for aþording

opportunities to engage in multiple ways of reading, writing, think-

ing, and talking (Englert & Mariage, 1996). However, merely choos-

ing diþerent literacy events does not mean that students necessarily

participate in these diþerent discourses, roles, and ways of using lit-

eracy as tools to learn, or that teachers will alter the ways in which

they assist learning.

The teacherÄs role as ÃÃmore knowledgeable otherÄÄ must extend far

beyond oneÄs knowledge of literacy content. If teachers are to suc-

cessfully educate students with special needs, they will need to be

increasingly able to orchestrate multiple ways of assisting both the

cognitive and social development of their students. When teachers

choose powerful literacy events and begin to understand how to maxi-

mize the learning potential of the event, they can transform the

social contexts of classrooms and successfully teach more students,

including those with special needs. This places the role of more

knowledgeable others in assisting development as the centerpiece for

teaching, learning, and future research.

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